Saturday, February 14, 2015

Student Spotlight: Ben Tong

Ben Tong is an Animation Major and a SEQA Minor. He loves making comics and has a style unique to him! Challenging himself with warped perspectives and even more warped characters, his sense of design and personal tastes shine through in his drawing.

He's not exactly sure when or how it started – maybe it was after reading Captain Underpants – but he distinctly remember trying to pull off a comic with a friend in the fourth grade. The story was along the lines of chickens and roosters from outer space taking their long-term war on San Francisco – apparently his friend and him disregarded gender, so we had chickens (the good guys) facing off the roosters (the bad guys).
It wasn’t until he picked up Jeff Smith’s Bone in the 5th grade that he found himself stepping into a larger world. Smith’s work was gorgeous. As a fifth grader he had no idea comics could be so beautiful (compared to Captain Underpants). It was from that point on that he decided to be more serious about it.

His inspirations are ranged! Jeff Smith was one of the biggest inspirations for him getting into comics. He also a big fan of Jake Parker, Stan Sakai, Akira Toriyama, Skottie Young, and Inoue Takehiko’s work. For those of you that don’t know any one of them, you should go check them out!